suffering children perspectives on innocence and vulnerability in mahler's fourth

8/20/2019 Suffering Children Perspectives on Innocence and Vulnerability in Mahler's Fourth

1/36

Suffering Children: Perspectives on Innocence and Vulnerability in Mahler's FourthSymphonyAuthor(s): Raymond KnappSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Spring, 1999), pp. 233-267Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746800Accessed: 28/07/2010 15:02

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2/36

Suffering

Children:

Perspectives

o

nnocence

n d

Vulnerability

n

M ahler s

o u r t h

Symphony

RAYMOND KNAPP

The

most

insightful

critical

discussions of

Mahler's Fourth

Symphony identify

its

projec-

tion of an

idealized

childhood as

its

defining

characteristic.Theodor W.

Adorno,

for

example,

observes that the

Fourth's

"image-world

s that

of

childhood,"

and

that

the entire

symphony-

Mahler's

"fairy-tale

ymphony"-"

shuffles

non-

existent children's songs together." More re-

cently,

Mark Evan

Bonds,

who

opens

and

closes

his

discussion of

the finale with

telling

refer-

ences to

The

Polar

Express (a

1985 children's

book

in

which

sleigh

bells

play

a

prominent

role),

underscores the

"childlike

perspective"

of

the

symphony

and

identifies its central

is-

sues as

"childhood,

innocence,

[and]

faith."'

There would

seem

to be little room within

this

sentimentalized

worldfor the

symphony's many

contrasting

and often

contradictory

elements,

19th-Century

Music

XXII/3

(Spring

1999).

?

by

The

Re-

gents

of the

University

of

California.

I

wish

to thank

Mitchell

Morris,

Susan

McClary,

and

Francesca

Draughon

for their valuable

suggestions

and un-

stinting

encouragement,

without which

this

article either

would not or could

not have been

written.

'Adorno and

Bonds

provide

the most

perceptive

articula-

tions of

this

perspective.

See

Theodor W.

Adorno,

Mahler:

A

Musical

Physiognomy,

trans. Edmund

Jephcott (Chi-

cago, 1992;

orig. publ.

as

Mahler:

Eine musikalische

Physiognomik

[Frankfurt,1960]), pp. 53,

55,

and

57;

and

Mark Evan

Bonds,

"Ambivalent

Elysium:

Mahler's Fourth

Symphony"

in

his

After

Beethoven:

Imperatives

of

Origi-

nality

in

the

Symphony

(Cambridge,Mass.,

1996),

pp.

175-

200,

pp.

175 and

199;

Chris

van

Allsburg,

The Polar

Ex-

press (Boston, 1985).

Mahler himself

made

repeatedrefer-ences to the child-orientation of his

Fourth,

as

usefully

recounted

in Constantin

Floros,

Gustav

Mahler:

The

Sym-

phonies,

trans. Vernon

Wicker

(Portland,

Or.,

1993;

orig.

publ.

as Gustav

Mahler

III: Die

Symphonien

[Wiesbaden,

1985]),pp. 112-15;

and

Henry-Louis

de La

Grange,

Gustav

Mahler,

Volume

2,

Vienna: The

Years

of

Challenge

(1897-

1904)

(rev.,enlarged,updated,

and trans.

from the

original

French,

Gustav

Mahler:

Chronique

d'une

vie,

1979-84

Ox-

ford, 1995),

pp.

757-59.

Moreover,

a "kindlich"

tone

is

specifically

requested

in the score

for the

soprano

in

the

finale.Two other

thoughtful-and

thought-provoking--dis-

cussions

of the Fourth

center in

very differentways on its

child-orientation;

see David

Schiff, "Jewish

and

Musical

Tradition

in the Music

of

Mahler

and

Schoenberg,"Jour-

nal

of

the Arnold

Schoenberg

Institute

9

(1986), 217-31;

and Adolf

Nowak,

"Zur

Deutung

der Dritten und

Vierten

SinfonieGustav

Mahlers,"

n Gustav

Mahler,

ed.

Hermann

Danuser,

vol. 653

of

Wege

der

Forschung

Darmstadt,1992),

pp. 191-205;

rpt.

from

Religiose

Musik n

nicht-liturgischen

werken

von

Beethoven bis

Reger,

ed. Walter

Wiora,

vol.

51 of Studien

zur

Musikgeschichte

des 19.

Jahrhunderts

(Regensburg,

1978),

pp.

185-94.

For his

part,

Donald

Mitchell,

in line with

many others, prefers

to

emphasize

the Fourth's "neoclassical" spirit and hidden sophistica-

tion,

referring

only

briefly

to its central

concept

of

"inno-

cence";

see

Mitchell,

Gustav Mahler:

The

Wunderhorn

Years:

Chronicles and

Commentaries

(Boulder,Co., 1975),

p.

344.

233


3/36

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

which

therefore

appear

oddly

dissonant,

to-

gether serving

as

an

example

of

Mahler's

eclec-

tic mixing of perspectives in his symphonies.

But darker elements are

subtly present

from

the

outset of the Fourth

Symphony

and

perva-

sive

thereafter;

to locate the dominant

voice

of

the

symphony

in

nostalgia

is to

deny

the

im-

portance

within Mahler's

vision

of the bleak

underside to childhood innocence and

vulner-

ability.

Moreover,

the

consensus view of

Mahler's Fourth conforms more with

current

Western attitudes toward childhood than with

those of Mahler's

generation;

or

them,

the death

of children was both a

more

pressing practical

concern than

today

and

treated,

as a

subject

in

art

and

literature,

much

differently.

It is

partly

to

explore

more

fully-and

ar-

ticulate more

precisely-the perspectives

that

the Fourth

Symphony

offers on its

projected

child-world that

I

offer

the

following

reading.

But I also have another, more broadly based

agenda.

Too

often,

discussions of

Mahler's

mu-

sic

polarize

into

an

overriding

concern for

the

logic

of his musical

discourse,

on the one

hand,

and,

on the

other,

a

valorizing

of its

seemingly

illogical

twists and

turns,

typically

seen

as a

suggestive

but

murky

analog

to

either his life

or his

view

of the world. Both

poles

are rooted

firmly

in

Mahler's

own

time

and in the

time

of

his American renaissance, from the 1960s for-

ward. The

attempt

to claim Mahler

as a mod-

ernist,

to

see

him as a

sophisticated,

high-art

master

of musical

complexities,

finds

support

both in

Schoenberg's early

tributes

(offered

n

part

out

of

gratitude

for Mahler's

sometimes

theatrical

support

for his own

pioneeringwork)2

and in the esoteric musical modernism still

in

the ascendent

during

the

1960s,

when Mahler

was being "rediscovered"andplacedbefore the

public by

Leonard Bernstein

and

others.3

The

extreme

emphasis

that this element

has

placed

on Mahler's

musical

innovations

has

had

at

least

one overt

aim,

which is

to counter

the

long-standing discomfort occasioned by

Mahler's

stylistic

eclecticism.

Thus,

the

(mostly

implicit)

argument

runs,

we

must not be mis-

led

by

either

Mahler's

seeming

affection

for

the

banal

or his

apparent

disregard

for the tradi-

tional

musical

unities of form and

style;

if

we

look

past

the

distracting

surface

discontinuities,

Mahler's

music

is,

after all

and

above

all

else,

extremely complex

and

tightly

unified.

On the

other hand, those troubling surface discon-

tinuities,

along

with

sheer

length

and other

tokens of

extremity,

are

precisely

what

mat-

tered to

many

who

rushed to

embrace

Mahler's

symphonies

in the

1960s

and

later,

taking

them

in

with a

sense

of

mystified

awe well

in

keep-

ing

with the

variety

of

transcendentalisms

and

drug-based

experiences,

and

the

general

ven-

eration for

epiphanous insight,

that

were

then

prevalent.This kind of emphasis,too, had much

historical

grounding,

not

only

in

the chaotic

turmoil of

fin-de-siecle Vienna,4

but

also,

and

especially early on,

in

the

mystifications

of-

fered

up

as

explanations

in his

widow's

mem-

oirs.5

Thus,

the

sixties

found,

in

Arnold

Schoenberg

and in Alma

Mahler,

precisely

the

poles

that still dominate

explications

of

Mahler's music.

Yet it is entirely possible to integrate these

poles,

to

relate

a

detailed

engagement

with

musical detail to a

complex, historically

situ-

ated

expressive environment,

to

establish

Mahler's musical

sophistication (if

such

is one's

goal) through

a

grounded

analysis

of

his

music's

expressive

surface.

And

we

get

thereby,

as

I

hope

the

following demonstrates,

a clearer

pic-

ture of how Mahler

operated

as

a

composer

than if we leave the musical detail largely

unexamined,

or construe either his

principal

agenda

or his central contribution to

music

2See Arnold

Schoenberg,

"Gustav

Mahler:

In

Memoriam

(1912)"

and "Gustav

Mahler

(1912,

1948),"

in

Style

and

Idea,

ed.

Leonard

Stein,

trans.

Leo Black

(Berkeley

and

Los

Angeles,

1984), pp.

447-72.

3Two

signal

events in the

"rediscovery"

f

Mahler,

at least

in the United States, were Bernstein's centennial celebra-

tion in

1960

and

his

recording

of the

complete

sympho-

nies for

CBS,

completed

in

1967. The

centrality

of

Bernstein's role

in

the Mahler

revival

has, however,

been

disputed.

4See

especially,

among

other

discussions,

Carl E.

Schorske,

Fin-de-siecle

Vienna: Politics

and

Culture

(New

York,

1981).

SSee

Alma

Mahler,

GustavMahler:Memories nd

Letters,

rev.

anded. Donald

Mitchell,

rans.Basil

Creighton

Lon-

don, 1968, orig.publ.Amsterdam, 940).Ironically, er-

haps,responsibility

or the

mystification

f

Mahlermust

also

ie with

the

famously

uperstitious

rnold

choenberg

("Gustav

Mahler:

In

Memoriam

1912]"

and "Gustav

Mahler

1912,1948]").

234


4/36

history

as

developing

a

progressively complex,

essentially

abstract musical

language.

The

pro-

liferation of Mahler studies over the past three

decades has increased

the

difficulty

of such an

integration,

but it must be

attempted.

One

should

not be led to

feel,

as one so often is

by

this

growing body

of

work,

that

analytical

treat-

ments of Mahler and

other,

less technical dis-

cussions are

confronting entirely

different

rep-

ertories,

for which not

only

different,

but

actu-

ally incompatible

notions of

meaning

and value

hold sway.

In the

following reading

of

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony,

I

discuss

the

expressive

import

of

both musical detail and

largerorganization,

and

try

to leave

open,

as much as

possible,

the

ambiguities

that Mahler himself left

open.

For

reasons of

economy, my primary

concern will

be the first two

movements,

which set the terms

for the

whole;

I

do

discuss

the

finale,

but

mainly

in passing, in orderto make long-term sense of

earlier events.

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony begins

with

an

in-

trusion.

In a

technical

sense,

the

opening

three

measures

(see

ex.

1) merely

do what

any sym-

phonic

opening might reasonably

do. Function-

ing

in

part

as thematic

exposition, they present

one of the central ideas of the

symphony

in

high profile: staccato eighth notes in the winds

playing repeated open

fifths,

inflected with

an

upper

semitone

grace

note

implying

the minor

mode,

augmented by sleigh

bells.

Moreover,

these

opening

measures serve a conventional

function

conventionally

modified,

by provid-

ing

an

introduction

for

a

theme

(beginning

in

m.

3)

that cannot

convincingly begin

a

sym-

phony

on its

own,6 inflected,

i

la

Beethoven,

so

as to be harmonically inconclusive regarding

both mode and tonic. But the effect

here,

de-

spite

resonances with traditional

symphonic

discourse,

is

emphatically

one of

intrusion,

on

a

number

of levels.

Foremost

there is the sound of the

opening:

sleigh

bells

deployed

so as to make their for-

eignness

of timbre the center of the

sound,

with the

other instruments

(initially

just

the

flutes)

providing

stark

support

for

a

motivic

figure

based

on

simple

staccato

reiteration,

clearly designed to evoke the sound of func-

tioning

sleigh

bells. Even the

indistinct har-

monic

environment and

the

absence of

string

tone in

this

opening

derive

from the

sleigh

bells andtheir

associations,

projecting

he

coldly

resonant

emptiness

of an

open

fifth

oddly

touched

by

naivet6.

This

naturalistic

deploy-

ment of

sleigh

bells

corresponds

closely

to

Mahler's later

use of

cowbells in

his

sympho-

nies; with each, both referentialmeanings and

the

strangeness

of the

sound

itself within

a

symphonic

context come into

play.

In

the

Fourth

Symphony,

however,

unlike in

Mahler's

later

practice,

the

intrusion of

the

nonsym-

phonic

instruments into

the

symphony

is

im-

mediate and

definitional,

presenting

us with an

initial

double-image

paradoxically

combining

the

roles

of

intruder

and

background.

And the

sleigh bells have an estranging referential ef-

fect,

for

they

belong

to

both a

wintry

outside

and

memory,

with these

two frames of

refer-

ence

combining

to

produce

a

tone of

nostalgia

with a

disturbing,

potentially chilling

under-

tone.7

Indeed,

the dramatic

shape

of

the

symphony

will revolve

around the

conflicting

tones of

rememberedchildhood as evoked in

this

open-

ing, involving both the innocence and the mor-

tal

vulnerability

of

youth,

rendered indistinct

by temporal

distance

(nostalgic naivete)

and a

dreamlike sense of

unreality

that

does not ex-

clude

nightmare.

Ultimately,

the finale

of the

symphony, adapted

from the most

seductively

charming

of

Mahler's

Wunderhorn

songs,

Das

himmlische

Leben

(The

Heavenly

Life),

will

blend

the

nightmarish

with a

childish vision of

Utopia, through which a sometimes malicious

play

with

religious symbols

and a

bizarre

preoc-

RAYMOND

KNAPP

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony

6See

Charles

Rosen,

The Classical

Style: Haydn,

Mozart,

Beethoven

(New York,

1972),

p.

349.

7Compare

Mark Evan

Bonds's discussion

of this

opening.

While

noting

the

disturbing

role

played

by

the

return

of

the

opening sleigh

bells in

the

finale,

and

also

by

their

alliance later with

the funereal

passage

late

in

the

devel-

opment

of the

first

movement,

Bonds sees the

opening

as

essentially

innocent

in

tone, although

contrasting severely

with the

string

theme that

follows

(Bonds,After

Beethoven,

pp. 186-87 and 190).See also Adorno (Mahler,pp. 56-57),

who

discusses the

disturbing

incompatibility

of the "bell

opening"

with the

theme that succeeds

it,

and

who,

like

Bonds, accepts

the innocent tone of the

opening

at face

value.

235


5/36

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

BedAchtig

icht eilen

Moderato

Non

affrettare

Vorschliige

sehr

kurz Le

appoggiature

molto corte

poco

rit.

Fl.

1.2.i__

p

stacc.

dim.

pp

a

a

2_fr

dim

poco

rt

C.3.4.in

IV

=

P

ddim

Sleighbells

41

IPP

un

poco

ritard.

grazioso V

Vn.

Recht

gemichlich

(Haupttempo)

Con

molto

comodo

(Tempo principale)

4

1.2. a2

CI.

A)

_

P

Bsn.

P

VPi

PP

p

pizz.

z

Iarco

P

pizz.

arco

pizz.

>-arco

P 2P

Example

1:

Mahler,

Fourth

Symphony,

movt.

I,

mm. 1-22.

cupation

with food continue to disturb even as

we submit

in

the end

to

the

warm

embrace

of E

major.

We are comforted

by

this

ending only

to

the extent that

we hear it as

ritualistic,

as

simple

lullaby,

and

forget

that

in

some scenarios of

childly

seduction

(such

as

Erlk6nig)

it is

explic-

itly

death

and not

sleep

to

which

the child

is

lulled. And it is

not hard to

see

through

the

preoccupation

with

food,

which

seems

consid-

erably

less

bizarre when we

project

the

harsher

reality

from which

this

imagined place

of os-

tentatious

bounty

implicitly

offers

an

escape,

a

projection

encouraged

by

the

portentous

decla-

mations that

punctuate

the

song,

in each case

leading

to

urgent, driving

recollections

of the

sleigh

bells

from the first movement.

236


6/36

Bsn.

p

P

1.2.

in

F

1r

Hn.

p mf p

Vn.I

1

Vn.

I

S V

non

div.

Via.

,.

"

___.____L6

I_

_"

_"

poco

cresc.

sf

p

Vc.__

Cb.__

poco

cresc.

f

psf

12

1.2.

2

Fl.

1.2.

-p

2

fp

P IP

1.2. a2

C1.

(A)

&

3.

p

1.2.

SP

P

P

I

SP

H n .

P

stacc.

V

Vn.I

\"

P

P

fpaf__

non

iv

,,•

e

.

I--

_

-d-v..

_div.

cV

Vab.

-.

-

-

--f_

pfp

_

fp

ff

Example 1

(continued)

RAYMOND

KNAPP

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony

237


7/36

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

(Hauptzeitmaf3)

16 r

7 7 r -

r -

Tempo

I.

(Tempo principale)

Ob.

,

T

_"

O_

_....Pp

1.2. a2

cresc.

Cl.

(A)

)

P

cresc.

Hn.

p

stacc.

cresc.. . .

. .

.

.4.

in F

p

cresc................................

Tempo

I.

(Hauptzeitmaf3)

stacc.

Vn.

t

piM

pizz.

Vn.I

Vc.

-

PPPz.

C

b

c

I

pI

I

z

pp

cresc.-_

-----

---

sf p

20

1"2"a2

l.

A)

10

p -s

-

- - - -

-

-

- - - - - - - - -

-

_

"

> >

PPce

c ----------------

s

Bsn.

Hn. _

Pstacc.

p

stacc.

Vn.I

AI-

*o-

1

,

f

Vn.

II

-

a r c o

Ir

TI

Example

1

(continued)

238


8/36

To

be

sure, irony

is not

the

only

viable

inter-

pretation

here,

for

the

major-mode

ending

leaves

open

the

question

of whether these intrusions

represent nightmares

recalledfrom the

vantage

point

of an achieved

Utopia,

or

reality

threat-

ening

to

disturb

a blessed

dream-state. Never-

theless,

an

ironic

reading,

in

which the child

dies

of

starvation

while

dreaming

of

plenty,

seems

fully

justified

by

the

balance of the

sym-

phony,

and

by

Mahler's

earlier

pairing

of this

song

with

Das irdische Leben

(The

Earthly

Life),

which

begins

with

the

pleas

of

a

starving

child

and ends with its death.8

Indeed,

we

may

use-

fully compare

the

end of Mahler's Fourth to

that

of

Erlk6nig,

in

which

the

mythic

intruder

seduces

the

child;

Mahler's

finale,

if

taken ironi-

cally,

is

considerably

more

disturbing,

both for

being grounded

more

obviously

in the

reality

of

hungry

children

and for its

presentation

of

es-

cape

as the

foreground,

the

abiding

and

trans-

figuring setting

in which

painful reality

be-

comes the resisted intruder.9

The finale

is

thus

richly

ambivalent.

Its

alarming

recollection of the

sleigh

bells from

the first

movement

is

inflected,

no less than its

vision of

Heaven,

with a

distorting

sense of

unreality,

so that we

may

choose

to

regard

ei-

ther side

of the

opposition-or

both-as dream-

based,

providing

a

visionary Heaven,

on the

one

hand,

and

a

depiction

of

nightmare,

on

the

other.

With

full

justification, however,

we

may

also choose to

regard

either

side-or

both-as

essentially

real,

with

distortions

on either side

stemming

from wakeful delirium

or

from

an

attempt

to

represent

a child's

perspective,

so

that

we are

shown

only

what

a

child

might

take in of

Heaven,

or

are

made to

experience

the

nightmarish

distortions

that can inform a

child's

seemingly

direct

perceptions.

This

interpretive

richness

should lead

one to

reconsider

the

circumstances that surrounded

Mahler's

decision

to

remove Das

himmlische

Leben fromits

planned position

as the

finale of

his Third

Symphony.

Discussions

of

this

re-

moval have tended

either toward

puzzlement,

since

so much in the Third

Symphony

antici-

pates

the

thematic material of the

song,

or near

indifference,

as

if

one need

not wonder that

Mahler would

cut a

movement from what

would

remain

his

longest symphony

even after

this

pruning.'0

Taking

into account his subse-

quent urgency to proceed with a Fourth Sym-

phony

that would

ground

the ironies

of his

orchestral Lied in an

opening

ambivalence

and

the

fact that Das

himmlische

Leben

would have

served the Third

Symphony primarily through

the innocence

of its tone

(hence

Mahler's

sub-

title,

"What the Child told

me")-and

thus

by

implicitly denying

its ironic

dimension and

ambivalent tone-it

seems

likely

that

Mahler's

concern lay more with the song than with the

Third

Symphony.

Arguably,

the

presumed

RAYMOND

KNAPP

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony

8Hans

Christian Andersen's

story

The

Little

Match

Girl

(1872)

provides

another useful

point

of reference

(discussed

further

below).

To

be

sure,

Andersen's

child dies of

expo-

sure rather than

hunger;

nevertheless,

the four

visions

she

sees

before

dying

are

obviously compatible

with

those

of-

fered in Mahler's Fourth

Symphony,

involving

warmth,

plentiful food, Christmas,

and

heaven-beckoning

ove.

9Compare

Bonds's and Adorno's discussions

of

the

finale,

particularly

regarding

ts

curiously distressing images

of

animal death and cheerful

carnivory,

the

perverse

confu-

sion of

many

emblems

of

Christianity,

and

the intrusion

of

a

nightmarish

version

of

sleigh

bells. Bonds also

cau-

tions

against

overemphasizing

the "darker

elements"

of

the

symphony

(Bonds,

After

Beethoven,

p. 199),

without

endorsing

the

general

preference

to

hear

only

innocence

and

bliss

in

the

finale.

Perhaps

the bleakest

view of the

symphony

is offered

by

Adolf

Nowak;

if

we

combine

his

view

of the

finale

as an

unacceptably

childish

refuge

(in

line with Nietzsche's views on religion), with Adorno's

understanding

of

the "fool's bells" from the

very opening

of

the work

as

a

clear statement that "none of what

you

now hear

is true"

(Adorno,

Mahler,

p.

56),

we must

take

the

returning

"fool's

bells"

in

the

finale

as

an

overt,

devas-

tating mockery

of

that

refuge.

However

tempting

Bonds's

advice

may

be-that

is,

not to

give

too much

weight

to

the "darker

lements"-it

is hard

to discern a viable middle

path,

and

he himself seems

only wistfully

able

to

imagine

one: "Mahler

created an

ending

in

which believers . ..

can

continue to

hear

the

sleighbells

as

a

memory

of childhood's

innocence"

(Bonds,

After

Beethoven,

p. 199).

Yet,

this

is

no middle path: to hear the sleigh bells in this way-to be

a

believer-is

to

deny

the darkness

completely;

on the

other

hand,

even the

slightest

of

doubts leads

inexorably

to

something

like Nowak's Nietzschean

view, wholly

in-

compatible

with belief.

See

Bonds, After

Beethoven,

pp.

191-99;

Adorno,

Mahler,

pp.

56-57;

and

Nowak,

"Zur

Deutung";

see also

Henry-Louis

de La

Grange'sattempt

at

mediation

(La

Grange,

Gustav

Mahler,

pp. 771-73).

'0See,

for

example, Mitchell,

Gustav

Mahler,

pp.

187-94

and

312-18, esp.

194.

Mitchell stands somewhat

apart

for

his

lengthy

elaboration

of the

problem,

but

refrains

from

attempting anexplanation.Another obvious consideration

is a

consistency

of

scoring;

for the Fourth

Symphony,

Mahler did without

trombones,

which are

indispensable

to

the

Third

Symphony,

but which Das

himmlische

Leben

does

not

use.

239


9/36

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

greater importance

of

Mahler's

longest sym-

phony

has blinded us to

his

prevailing

concern

for the individual

imperatives

of Das himm-

lische Leben;in addition, the association of the

latter with the

Third

Symphony

has made

its

projection

of childhood innocence seem to mat-

ter

more than the darker

meanings

this

projec-

tion

thinly

cloaks."I

The dreamlike

sense

of

unreality

that

per-

vades the

opening

movement is

maintained

by

coupling

the structures

of

normality-sym-

phonic

discourse based

on

"organic"

motivic

work within a clearly articulated sonata form

(or,

more

precisely,

sonata-rondo

orm)-with

a

fragmented

presentation

of

"naive"

material,

in

which individual

gestures

and

phrases

sharply

contrast

with their

neighbors

in

tone and in-

strumentation even as

they clearly recycle

a

relative

handful of

basic motives.

Within

this

procedure,

naivet6 functions both as an

agent

of

sophisticated

organicism-defining

the

ba-

sic tone andstyle of the movement andhelping

to

keep

motivic

relationships

transparent-and

as

justification

for

an

outwardly unsophisti-

cated

cobbling

of

material,

creating

a discur-

sive context

in

which

the

hierarchy

of

intruder

and intruded on seems

constantly

in

jeopardy

of

being

overturned.

Mahler's

approach

hus offers a fundamental

departure

from the Beethovenian

models

it

seems to imitate. Beethoven characteristically

uses

harmonically ambiguous introductory

ges-

tures to create

an

overriding

need for

clarity,

a

need

sufficiently

powerful

that we

readily

ac-

cept

an

extremely

harsh

opening

condition as

long

as

it

provides

the

clarity

needed.

Most

famously

in his Fifth and Ninth

Symphonies,12

Beethoven

provides

this

kind

of

clarity

by

ex-

tending

the

openingdiscourse,

basing

his clari-

fication

on further

elaborations

of

his

opening

materials. In Mahler'sFourth, however, as the

first clear

instance of a

pervasively fragmented

discourse,

clarification comes

through

the

in-

troduction of new

material,

disturbing

more

for

its extreme

warmth

(major-mode,

strings,

conventional

accompanimental

texture)

than

for the

projection

of

a

harsh

reality

and a

Beethovenian

imperative

to

engage

in

heroic

struggle

against

it.

Taken on its own, the violin phrase begin-

ning

in

m. 3

betokens

normality,

if

nostalgi-

cally

rendered,

based within a

pure string

tex-

ture

securely

grounded

in

conventional

har-

monic and

textural

practice.

Yet it also

denies

and

displaces

the most

significant

tokens

of

symphonic

normality

that

support

the intro-

ductory sleigh bells,

which have been

carefully

built

into the first three

measures of the

sym-

phony. Thus, notwithstanding the intruding

aspects

of this

opening,

it

establishes

a

clearly

articulated

pulse

and

delineates

a

conventional

"organic"

process

of

growth,

with

accelerating

metrical

subdivisions

(again

a la

Beethoven)'3

progressing

from

a full

measure

of

identical

eighth-note

divisions,

to

half-measure divisions

in

m.

2,

to

quarter-note

divisions

in

the first

half

of

m.

3,

arriving

full

circle with the

eighth-

note divisions in the second half of m. 3, all the

while

seeming

to move toward a

clarifying

ar-

rival

in

either

B

minor

(with

possible Phrygian

inflections)

or

"natural"

E

minor. These

pro-

cesses,

through

which the

"intruding"

sleigh

bells

lay

claim to

symphonic normality,

are

self-contained

and

internally

coherent;

they

are

also

specifically

and

systematically

contra-

"Mahler's

earlier intention to reunite

Das himmlische

Leben

with

Das irdische

Leben,

by

including

both in

the

Fourth

Symphony

(discussed

in

Mitchell,

Gustav

Mahler,

pp.

138-39

and

259n.),

would

have

served,

ronically

enough,

to

overemphasize

the childlike innocence

of

the former

through

the

direct

opposition

of

the

two

songs,

even

if the

latter would

have

centered the

subject

matter of the

sym-

phony

more

specifically

around

a child's

starvation.

12Regarding

he

Ninth,

see

Maynard

Solomon,

"The Ninth

Symphony:

A Search for

Order,"

n his

Beethoven

Essays

(Cambridge, Mass., 1988), pp.

3-32; orig.

publ.

as

"Beethoven'sNinth Symphony:A Searchfor Order," his

journal

10

(1986),

3-23;

and

Leo

Treitler,

"History,

Criti-

cism,

and Beethoven's

Ninth

Symphony,"

in

his Music

and the Historical

Imagination (Cambridge,

Mass., 1989),

pp. 19-45; rpt.

from

this

journal

3

(1980),

193-210.

The

opening

of

the Fifth

is

no

less

successful

in

creating

a need

for

clarity;

putting

aside

the

extreme

familiarity

of the

opening,

we

may

note how little is

actually

communi-

cated

by

the

first

four

measures

beyond

an

anxious,

crisis-

ridden

sense

of

moment,

for neither

key

nor

mode,

neither

meter nor

tempo,

is

defined

until after the second

fermata.

'3See

Rosen,

Classical

Style, pp.

64-67

and

387-89

regard-

ing

"rhythmic

transition"

in

general

and

Beethoven's

use

of metrical subdivisions in particular.Note that the dis-

placed

accents

in

m. 2

are

also

tokens

of

Beethovenian

discourse,

even

as

they

also

provide

a

hint

of

more

nega-

tive associations

with

sleigh

bells

than

simple

nostalgia.

240


10/36

dicted,

beginning

in

m.

3,

by

the

theme

they

ostensibly

introduce.

First,

the

opening

anacrusis

figure

of the vio-

lin

melody imposes

a ritardandoon the clear

pulse

of

the

opening,

with the

continuation

establishing

a

more

relaxed

tempo

(Recht

gemdchlich)

as the

Haupttempo

of the move-

ment.14

Next,

the

"organic" haping

of the

open-

ing (through

motivic

accumulation and

metri-

cal

acceleration)

is

replaced

by

a

loosely

struc-

tured series of

fairly independent

one-measure

melodic

units,

related to each

other

mainly

through

their

parallel

use of extended anacruses

for the downbeats

in mm.

4,

5,

and 6

(with

the

first two

of

these further

emphasized through

elaborate

appoggiatura

gestures),

shaped

rather

casually

through

the

extension

of this struc-

ture across

m.

6 to

strengthen

the arrival n m.

7.is

This more

segmented

melodic

discourse is

supported by

a hierarchical

accompaniment

(simple

bass with characteristic

arpeggiation

n

the inner

voices)

in

sharp

contrast to the

open-

ing

accumulation of

independent strands;

more-

over,

the

harmonic

structure

replaces

the

vague

stasis of the

opening

with

an

utterly

conven-

tional

progression

verging

on the

tautological

(I-IV

[ii6]-V [I6-V7]-I),

n

a

conventionally regu-

lar

harmonic

rhythm.

The

most

extreme

contradiction, however,

is

the sudden turn

to G

major,

the

tonic for

the

violin

melody

(and

for

the movement as a

whole),

which

emerges

as if

by magic

through

a

sleight-of-hand

rearrangement

of the

opening

elements.

Thus,

at

the critical

moment of ar-

ticulation,

when new

tempo,

new

homophonic

texture,

new

instrumentation,

and

the first

un-

ambiguous

full

harmony

are

asserted,

the hier-

archy

of the

opening

neighbor-note figure

is

inverted,

with the

grace-note

G

assuming

cen-

tral melodic

importance, suddenly

elevated

in

status from mere melodic

inflection to un-

equivocal

tonic.

Significantly,

the

immediate

descent to

B

after this arrivalboth confirms a

connection to the

opening

and underscores a

vital difference:

the

defining

motivic interval

has warmed from

open

fifth to minor

sixth,

with the

sentimental

dip

to the

pivotal

note

B

providing

a focus for this new warmth

by

un-

derscoring

the

changed

role

of

B,

transformed

from the base of an

open

fifth

to the

comforting

third

of a

major

triad.

Mahler's harmonic

legerdemain

carries with

it the additionaleffect that G

major,

the

princi-

pal

tonic,

is

first

presented

as an

escape,

a

flat-

sixth

digression against

the

background

of

the

opening suggestion

of

B

minor;

this

effect not

only

casts

the

uncomplicated

innocence

of

the

opening sleigh

bells

in

further

doubt,

but also

imparts

a

sense of otherworldliness to the de-

fining key

of the first

movement,

and hence to

its main

theme and

tempo. Moreover,beyond

the first

movement,

the

contingent

status of

G

major

in

its first

appearance helps prepare

the

more

extreme

gesture

of

escape

offered

in

the

finale,

to

E

major,

which

again

uses

sleigh

bells

to

define

the

immediate

"reality"

that

is

being

escaped

from.

And, beyond

the

symphony,

Mahler's device stands

midway

between an ear-

lier

practice,

in

which the flat

sixth

often

seemed to provide a haven of sorts through its

quality

of

harmonic difference

and

the

typi-

cally deceptive

mode of its arrival

(hence,

the

exaggerated

"sleight-of-hand"

in

Mahler's

ap-

RAYMOND

KNAPP

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony

14Oddly,

Simon Rattle

restores the

"normal"

hierarchy

to

this

opening

in

his 1997

recording,by playing

the

opening

slower than

the

string

theme

that

follows

it.

Although

Rattle

claims

to

base his

approach

on

the

counsel

of

Berthold Goldschmidt

(1903-97),

"who

could remember

how Mahler

actually

sounded in the

'20s,

when his own

performing

tradition was still

in minds and

fingers,"

the

result

seems

to this listener

rather more a

retreat from

Mahler's

daring

reversal

than

a welcome

restoration

(see

Rattle's notes to

Mahler:

Symphony

No.

4,

Simon Rattle

conducting

the

City

of

BirminghamSymphony

Orchestra,

with Amanda Roocroft as

soloist,

EMI

Classics

7243

5

56563

2

2, 1997,

p. 6). Compare

the

exaggerated

itardandi

with which Willem

Mengelberg,

who had earlier worked

directly

with

Mahler,

introduces

the

string

theme

in

his

1939

recording Concertgebouw

Orchestra,

with

Jo

Vincent

as

soloist,

reissued

by Phillips,

416

211-2,

as

a

compactdisc in

1997).

'5Mahler's

possible modeling

of this

theme

on Schubert's

Sonata

in

Eb,

D.

568,

serves

to

highlight

its

relaxed

charac-

ter,

largely

through

the

expansion

of Schubert's

4

meter

to

4.

Adorno

terms this

probable

allusion a

quotation

(Adorno,

Mahler,

p.

56);

see also La

Grange,

Gustav

Mahler,

p.

764.

David

Schiff,

on the other

hand,

claims that

"the

reference

is to

the famous

Serenade

from

Haydn's Opus

3-a

set

of

quartets

which

we no

longer

attribute

to

Haydn,

but which

was considered authentic

in Mahler's time"

(Schiff,

"Jew-

ish

and

Musical

Tradition,"

p.

225).

Schiff

presumably

means the slow

movement of

op. 3,

no.

5,

which is not

nearly

as close to Mahler's theme as is

Schubert's,

al-

though

Haydn

is

surely

invoked

in

the

opening

themes of

the

symphony,

if

only

because

he

had

come to

symbolize

naivete

by

the

end

of

the nineteenth

century.

241


11/36

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

plication),16

nd

Mahler's

own

developing

sense

of discomfort

in

resolving straightforwardly

o

the tonic.

The latter

discomfort,

shared

by

oth-

ers in his generation, finds its most elaborate

expression

in

the

finale of

his Ninth

Symphony,

in which

deceptive

resolutions to the flat sixth

are

so

completely

normalized that traditional

resolutions to

the tonic

are rendered

strangely

exotic." Mahler's

extension of the earlier

prac-

tice

at the

beginning

of

the Fourth

Symphony

is

centrally important

to

its

tone,

for his

open-

ing places

the referential

tonic for most

of

the

symphonywithin large-scaleparentheses,mark-

ing

the

symphony

(or

at least the first move-

ment)

as

an

escape

on a

large

scale without first

defining

with

any

clarity

what

it is an

escape

from. And

the

resonance

with his more elabo-

rate

procedures

in the

Ninth

Symphony

is

also

significant;

in

both

cases,

the

escape

provided

through deceptive

resolution

supports

a

sense

of

overwhelming

nostalgia.'8

While the

sense

of

nostalgia accompanying

the

shift

to

G

major

does

help

to

clarify

what is

being escaped

from-the

present and,

perhaps,

adulthood-nostalgia cannot be the crux of the

matter,

since

a sense of

nostalgia

is one

of

the

things

that links the

string

theme

to,

rather

than

separates

it

from,

the

opening

passage

for

sleigh

bells.

If

the sense of

nostalgia

is never-

theless intensified with the

shift,

this differen-

tiation

in

intensity

(but

not the

feeling

itself)

is

due to an essential

difference between

the two

passages,

which

might

best

be

understood

in

terms of connotative motion. Thus, the music

for

sleigh

bells

is

referentially

mobile,

repro-

ducing,

if

abstractly,

the sound of a

sleigh

in

motion,

and

layering

onto this sound the kind

of

oscillating

motivic work

frequently

used

to

suggest regulated

movement.

Also,

the

open-

ing

is

harmonically dynamic

in

its

implica-

tions,

if

relatively

static

in a

more literal

sense:

it leads us

to

anticipate

arrival.The

passage

for

strings,

in

contrast,

is at

rest, complacent,

even

indolent

in its

relaxed

unfolding

of

generic

sta-

bility; locally,

it

represents

an

escape

from mo-

tion

and the

anxieties

pertaining

thereto.

16See

Susan

McClary,

"Pitches,

Expression,

Ideology:

An

Exercise

n Mediation"

(Enclitic

7

[Spring

1983], 76-86)

for

a discussion

of

this

function

of flat-sixth harmonic

rela-

tionships

in

nineteenth-century

music.

Here,

the melodic

slide

upwards

to

G,

the

unexpectedness

of

the

resulting

harmonic

shift,

the

recasting

of

the

previous

harmonic

root as the third

of a

majortriad,

and

the

deceptive

nature

of the arrival

strongly

resonate

with the

paradigm

of 6VIas

McClary

describes

it. But this is

by

no means a

straight-

forward application, since, as noted, B has only equivo-

cally

been offered

as tonic

prior

to

the shift to

G

(which

might

be

understood,

less

extremely,

as the relative

major

of

e),

and

since,

more

generally,

shifting

to the lower

submediant

in

the

minor mode

does not entail the

chro-

matic

inflection that

helps

give

shifts

of

this

kind an

otherworldly quality

in

the

major

mode.

Nevertheless,

the

thoroughgoing

rearrangement

of other

musical elements

that

accompanies

the

shift,

as

discussed, aligns

this

pas-

sage

much more

closely

to

McClary's

flat-sixth

paradigm

than

to,

for

example,

a

more conventional

shift to the

relative

major.

'7While

Mahler's

drawing

on the

expressive

power

of de-

ceptive

resolution

in the

Ninth

Symphony

is often under-

stood as

a

gesture

of

leave-taking,

resonating

with a

key

passage

in

the

introduction to Beethoven's

op. 81a,

Das

Lebewohl

Sonata,

it

may

also be

usefully

related

to

Wagner's practice

in Tristan

und

Isolde,

not

only

with

regard

o

the

first harmonic

arrival

a deceptive

resolution

to

F, functioning

as

WVI/A),

ut

also

because

Tristan

played

a

pivotal

role

in

developing

the sense of

discomfort later

composers

felt

for

straightforward

V-I

resolutions.

"'This

sense

of

nostalgia

functions

both within

the tradi-

tional

"leave-taking" reading

of

the finale of the Ninth

Symphony,

and within Anthony Newcomb's "spiraling

quest"

plot

archetype

orthe

work;

see

Anthony Newcomb,

"Narrative

Archetypes

and Mahler's

Ninth

Symphony,"

in Music and

Text: Critical

Inquiries,

ed.

Stephen

Paul

Scher

(New

York,

1992),

pp.

118-36.

Newcomb

argues

against

the narrownessof

what has

been,

after

Adorno,

the

traditional

view of the

Ninth

Symphony

(Adorno,

Mahler,

p. 145);

while

Newcomb's alternative is

compelling,

his

argument does not extend to the larger issue of under-

standing

the Ninth as

musical

autobiography,

since

this

line

of

inquiry

is

always justified

in Mahler.

Thus,

a

read-

ing

of

the

Ninth

as

a self-reflective

attempt

by

Mahler to

merge

his

own

life-quest

with more

universal

quests-a

project

similar to

what

Maynard

Solomon

argues

for

Beethoven's

Ninth

(see Solomon),

if

arguably

more self-

conscious--does

not falter

just

because Mahler

did not

realize he was

dying;

both

composers

had much

to reflect

on in their

lives when

they

composed

their

respective

Ninths,

even

if neither believed

himself to be

dying.

Within

Newcomb's

plot

archetype,

the need to reconnect

to

ori-

gins

may be seen to reachbeyondthe first movement, in

technical terms

querying

the

language

of

tonality

and

its

origin

in

the

cadence,

in

figurative

terms

embracing

reli-

gious

quests

for

meaning

and

preoccupations

with

origins

(hence

the

hymnlike

style).

The link between

technical

matters, religion,

and

the

idea of

leave-taking-so

recently

addressed,

and with similar

means,

in Das Lied von

der

Erde-is

profoundly

simple:

the

cadence,

which

is

problematized

hroughout

the Ninth

(and

also

in the clos-

ing

stages

of Das

Lied),

s not

only

the

origin

and

defining

condition

of

tonality,

but

also

its

primary

resource

for

achieving

closure,

a

duality

that

provides

Mahler

with a

ready symbol for mapping the circular journey between

birth and

death. In

confronting

the

cadence,

Mahler

con-

fronts both

birth and

death,

and the

attempt

to

configure

meaning

between

them, religious

or

otherwise.

242


12/36

The contrast

between

the first two

passages

establishes

the first

as the

central

destabilizing

presence

for the movement-an

intruder that

facilitates further intrusion-and the second,

along

with

its

key, tempo,

and

theme,

as

the

central

stabilizing presence.

This

polarity

de-

pends

on a critical

difference between

the vio-

lin

theme

and the

sleigh-bells

music.

Although,

as

discussed,

the

former

displaces

the latter

and so

might

reasonably

be

described

as an

intruder;

ts

appearance

provides

relief,

warmth,

and a sense of

normality

and

imposes

no

obvi-

ous intrusive threat. To the extent that the

violin theme

represents

stability,

it is more

intruded on than

intruder,

and

thus

feels,

para-

doxically,

remarkably

like

a return

already

in

its first

appearance,

an effect that is reinforced

by

its

nostalgic

allusion

to

Schubert,

its intro-

ductory

ritardando,

and the

tendency,

in most

performances,

for the

sleigh

bells

not to slow

sufficiently

to

accommodate that

ritardando.

In this way, the violin theme reinscribes the

sleigh

bells as

intruder,

despite

their

priority,

and

even

if

the shock

value

of

the

opening

has

been

substantially

muted

by

familiarity.

Within

a

general pattern

of

negotiation

be-

tween the

opening

and the

violin

theme,

both

in

terms

of

larger

sections

of the

form

and

interactive

passages

n

which

they

confronteach

other more

freely,

motivic

tokens

from

the

sleigh-bells passage generatea sense of motion,

while the violin theme

attempts

figuratively

to

apply

the

brakes.

Interactions

of this sort are

already subtly

present

within the

G-major

theme

and

are

used

to

shape

the remainder of

the

first

group.

Thus,

the

dotted

rhythms

in

m.

6,

which

provide

the

only

sustained

propulsive

energy

in the violin theme

as

they

push

beyond

the

downbeat,

borrow

their

energy

from the

grace

notes of the

opening.

The connection to

the

opening

is made more

explicit

immediately

following

the

close

in m.

7,

as

repeated

stac-

cato

eighth

notes in the winds

(now

without

grace

notes

or

sleigh

bells,

and

sounding

full

triads)

accompany

the

dotted

figure,

which

reg-

isters as

a

questioning

intruder

despite

its im-

mediate derivation

from the violin theme

it-

self.

Following

closely

on the heels of

this in-

truder

is

yet

another

intruder,

as the horn

usurps

the continuation with its own characteristic

motive

(m.

10), again

derived

from the

repeated

eighth

notes of the

opening,

with a

triplet

in-

flection

adapted

from

the

original grace

notes.

Each of

these entries is

experienced

as

intru-

sion in partbecause, in each case, the principal

instrumental sound

involved is

being

heard for

the

first time

in

the

symphony

(arco

cellos and

basses,

then

horns).

Significantly, then,

when

the

violins return to

answer the

rising

dotted-

rhythm figure

in

simultaneous inversion

(m.

12), they

immediately

assume the

role

of re-

straining

the

propulsive

effect

of

the

intruding

figures,

a

role that is

quickly

reinforced

by

their

melodic opposition to the rising dotted-note

figure

and their insistent

repetition

of

an

ap-

poggiatura figure

derived from their earlier

melody.

The

exchanges

that follow

(mm.

13-

17) clearly align

the forces

of

mobility

and sta-

sis

against

each

other,

with

the horn

figure

(now

given

to oboes and clarinets

with horn

support)

twice

interrupting

the anacrusis that

follows each of the

violins'

appoggiaturas.

With

the second interruption,the horn figure is sup-

ported

by

the

rising

dotted-note

figure

in

the

lower

strings,

and

the

combination of

the

two

builds as if to

prepare

a climactic arrival. But

the arrival is not

organically

achieved; rather,

the violins'

melody

returns

as

yet

another

in-

terruption

at the

peak

of this

buildup

(at

the

end

of m.

17),

its sense of

stability

enriched

through

a

new imitative

counterpoint

in

the

cello and a morestraightforward rticulation of

the bass line.

A

full statement of the

melody

in

this

enhanced form closes

off

the first

group.

In an

important

sense,

the

first

group

(ex.

1,

pp.

236-38)

fulfills the

principal

function

of

exposition

in

sonata

form, establishing

the main

sources

of harmonic and thematic tension

for

the movement

and

reaching

a

temporary

sta-

bility.

The remainder

of

the sonata-form

expo-

sition, conventional at least to the extent of

offering

a

lyrical

second

group

n

the

dominant,

does, however,

provide

a few

significant

sur-

prises.

After the

bridge

elaborates a more ex-

treme version of the

digressive

exchanges

of

mm.

7-17

(in

mm.

21-32),

we are

given

this

time a more

"organic"

climax,

an

extreme,

carnivalesque

outburst

(m. 32)

instead of the

previous

retreat

to an earlier

representation

of

stability.

Even

here,

there is an

overriding

ef-

fect of

intrusion, however, partly

because the

instruments involved

in

the last

stages

of the

RAYMOND

KNAPP

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony

243


13/36

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

buildup

(first

violins, bass,

flutes,

and

oboes)

break off without

"arriving,"displaced

for

two

measures

by

raucous

clarinets

playing

stark oc-

taves

in

a

high

register,

after which

the dis-

placed

instruments

begin

to reassert

themselves

(m.

34).

But

the sense

of

intrusion is more ba-

sic,

as the tone-established

through tempo,

key, register,

and

affect-represents

an

extreme

departure,

even for this

movement

in

which

extreme

departures

are the rule rather than

the

exception.

All that

links this

passage

to the

foregoing

is

its

aggressive childishness,

which

is

enthusiastically

maintained even

after the

clarinets

drop

out.

Yet,

despite

its extreme

sense

of

intrusion,

the outburst

has a

conventional

function within

the tradition Mahler is

nostal-

gically invoking, filling

in for

the

celebratory

cadential

passages

that

so often

close

off

the

first

group

in a

Mozartean sonata form.

In

fact,

it

reproduces

precisely

the

late-eighteenth-cen-

tury structure that RobertWinter identifies as

a

"bifocal

close,"

ending

with

a

strong

half

cadence in the

original

tonic

before

proceeding,

after a

pause,

in

the

new

key, thereby

retroac-

tively

reinterpreting

the

concluding

chord as

tonic rather than

dominant.19

Also

seemingly

conventional in function

is

the

closing

group

(beginning

n

m.

58),

in

which

a

more relaxed form

of

the

opening

material

providesa sense of closurewhile simultaneously

preparing

for a

return to the

opening.

Yet

Mahler's

closing group

is

curiously

ambivalent

about both

closure

and the

feasibility

of

return,

as

he

creates the

impression

of

trying

unsuc-

cessfully

to

regenerate

a

sense

of

motion

after

the

languorous

second

group.

Twice,

rather

static transformations

of

the

opening figures

are

jerked

into accelerated

motion,

first in a

forte

4

measure (m. 62), and then

in

an expan-

sion of this

measure

combined with the

earlier

dotted-note

motive

(m. 66).

While

these at-

tempts fail,

so that the

exposition

closes

with

the musical

equivalent

of a slow

fade,

their

very

lack of

fulfillment

leaves

us with a

sense

of

expectancy

that

is

well

answered

by

the re-

turn

of the

sleigh

bells for

the first time

since

the

opening.

And

yet,

the

meaning

of this

re-

turn

is

muddled from the

outset,

appearing

ap-

propriately

enough

for this

movement)

as

an

intruder

before the

fade is

complete,

and

pro-

ceeding

as

a

varied

repeat

of

the

opening,

close

enough

to

the

original

to

be taken for a

genuine

return, yet

subtly

progressive

in its

narrative

implications.

What follows this returncorrespondsclosely

to a traditional

manipulation

of

sonata form

often

referred to as

sonata-rondo,

in

which a

return to the

opening

theme

in

the tonic leads

to a

development

section and

then to a reca-

pitulation

in which

the main

theme

may

(but

may

not)

be withheld until

the end or

other-

wise curtailed.

Haydn

and

Mozart,

especially

the

latter,

used this form

frequently

in

finales,

but not until Brahms'sFourthSymphony(1885)

is

a version of it

used for the first

movement of

a

major

work. This

distinction

is

crucial,

since

its use in a

finale,

in

which,

typically,

a tunelike

first

theme

will

emphasize

the

rondo element

of

the mixed

form,

can

differ

substantially

from

its

use

in

a first

movement,

where the

return

to

the

opening

will

inevitably

play

on our

expec-

tation of

a

repeat

of

the

exposition.20

Here,

de-

spite the evident importance to Mahler of out-

wardly

following convention,

there are

critical

differences between his

procedures

and more

traditional

practice. First,

as

stated,

the

recol-

lection of

the

opening quickly

veers

away

from

strict

repetition,

following broadly

the struc-

ture and

strategies

of

the first

group

but

with

significant

departures.

Second,

Mahler

intro-

duces several

episodes

in

his

development

that

will have long-range significance for the work

as

a

whole.

Third

and

finally, disquieting

events

in

the

recapitulation

and

coda

maintain the

principle

of intrusion

through

what

is tradi-

tionally

the most stable section of

sonata

form.

The return to

sleigh

bells

expands

the

open-

ing

three measures

to four

and

a

half,

with a

'"See

Robert

S.

Winter,

"The Bifocal

Close

and the

Evolu-

tion

of

the Viennese

Classical

Style,"

Journal

of

the Ameri-

can Musicological Society 42 (1989), 275-337; according

to Winter's

criteria,

this

movement

offers

a

full

imple-

mentation of

the

device, since,

in

the

recapitulation,

Mahler

continues

in

the tonic after the close on the dominant

(mm.

262-63).

20Adornoerms this passagea "falserecapitulation"with-

out

explanation

(Adorno,

Mahler,

p.

54). Traditionally,

his

term has been

applied

to

premature

returns to the

opening

theme and

key

within

(that

is,

not

preceding)

a

develop-

mental

section,

especially

as

found

in

Haydn.

244


14/36

a.

"Jingle

Bells"

modern

ersionof

chorus,

opening

phrase).

~a~s~ii~i~ie

Example

2

RAYMOND

KNAPP

Mahler's

Fourth

Symphony

varied treatment of both

instrumentation

and

motivic

unfolding;

in

particular,

the

expansion

brings

G

major

nto

play

earlier,

coincident

with

a

new treatment of the

repeated eighth

notes.

Intriguingly,

the latter serves to

tighten

the re-

lationship

between

Mahler's

sleigh-bells

mo-

tive

and the

chorus

of

the familiar

carol,

"Jingle

Bells," by adding the third of the chord, deriv-

ing

a

three-note

"Jin-gle-Bells"

pattern

at

the

beginning

of each

half

measure,

and

emphasiz-

ing,

like the

carol,

the

three notes of the tonic

triad

(see

ex.

2a).21

What is

rather more

impor-

tant,

though,

is that

the return functions

as

neither

a rondolike

returnnor

a

false

repetition

of the

exposition;

instead,

we are

given,

as

part

of an

ongoing narrative,

a new

negotiation

be-

tween

the two

opening ideas,

which

begins

with

a more

benign

form of the

sleigh-bells

music

and continues

with

a

more

graceful

interweav-

ing of the two as the G-majortheme enters.

Because of the

more

accommodating

inter-

action between

the

previously

antagonistic

themes,

we are

easily

led to a

reconciliation

of

sorts between

them,

a reconciliation

that

relies

heavily

on an incidental

figure

introduced

as

part

of the enhanced

counterpoint

for the

G-

major

theme

in its second

appearance

(m.

20;

see ex.

1).

At

the time of its

introduction,

this

figure

is the first and

only

contribution of wind

sound to the four-measure

G-major

theme

and

represents

a

conciliatory

derivation

from

the

opening

dotted

rhythms

and

6-5

melodic

mo-

tion. In the more

relaxed

atmosphere

that

fol-

lows

the

exposition,

not

only

are other

signifi-

cant motives from

the

sleigh-bells

theme

of-

fered

as

counterpoint

to

the violins'

theme

(in

the

cellos),

but

the

winds are

also

allowed

sig-nificant imitative

play

with the theme itself

(mm.

77-79).

After a

considerably

less conten-

tious

rehearsal of

the

negotiation

that

origi-

nally

followed

the

four-measure

theme

(mm.

80-90),

an extended

treatment of the

new

figure

(mm.

91-101),

rather

than the

four-measure

vio-

lin

theme,

serves

to

close this

section

with a

sense of

peaceful

concord.

Closure

at this

point (m. 101)

is more

com-

plete

than at

any

point

so

far

in the

movement,

even

though,

in

a

typical

movement in

this

form,

it is

precisely

at this

point,

near

the end

of the first

return to

the first

thematic

group,

that

stability

is

most

severely

undermined,

in

order to launch and

justify

a

developmental

episode.

It is

important

to

note how and

why

this

departure

rom

convention

occurs.

The how

is

relatively simple:

what we

are

given

between mm. 72-101 is the

equivalent

of

a

recapitulation

of

the first

group,

which

in

its

original

form set

up

the

principal

thematic

con-

21Given

the

provenance

of the

song,

it is

extremely

un-

likely

that

this is an intentional

allusion. "The One Horse

Open Sleigh,"by JamesPierpont(1822-93),was published

in

Boston in

1857,

and

republished

n

1859

as

"Jingle

Bells

or The

One Horse

Open Sleigh."

(Pierpont,

an uncle of

John

Pierpont Morgan,

and

rebellious son of controversialUni-

tarian

minister, poet,

and

abolitionist

John

Pierpont,

went

on to

write

patriotic

songs

for

the

Confederacy

n relative

obscurity.)

While the

quick

reissue of the

song

with the

name

changed

to include its "hook"

indicates some

early

popularity,

ts

"world-wide

amiliarity

seems to be a

twen-

tieth-century

phenomenon"

(Richard

Jackson, Popular

Songs

of

Nineteenth-Century

America

[New York,

1976],

p.

272; Jackson's

collection includes a

reproduction

of the

1859publication).Moreover, he tune has evolved overthe

years,

especially

the chorus: the

original

chorus was con-

siderably

more mobile both

harmonically

and

melodically;

thus,

for

example,

although

the

repeated-note

motive on

3

("Jinglebells")

was

present

in

the

earlier

version,

the

rep-

etition

moves

up

to

5,

with

dominant

support,

and the first

phrase

ends on the

leading

tone to vi

(see

ex.

2c).

If the

resemblance

might

thus be better

ascribed to

parallel

motivic

representations

of

sleigh bells,

an

argu-

ment for allusion

might

nevertheless be

made

on

internal

evidence.

Thus,

Mahler's

procedure,

f

intentionally

allu-

sive,

follows

precisely

the

strategy

I

have

argued

or

many

of Brahms'sallusions (RaymondKnapp,"Brahmsand the

Anxiety

of

Allusion,"

Journal

of

Musicological

Research

18

[1998], 1-30), subtly

manipulating

the

opening,

which

is

itself

only vaguely allusive,

in

orderto create a

stronger

resonance

at an

appropriate

ater

moment,

but nonethe-

less

steering

clear

of

explicit quotation. Further,

he

gradual

conversion of the

grace-note

figure

to a new

motive that

yields

precisely

three

repeated eighth

notes

at

the

begin-

ning

of each

half measure

might

easily

be

construed as

evidence of a

deliberate derivation. In

any case,

if one

does

hear

an

echo of the carol

in

this

passage,

that

echo is made

more

difficult to

ignore

by

the

coherent reinforcement

it

offers to the more abstractlyconceived effect of Mahler's

transformation.

Thus,

one

may

claim a

functioning

allu-

sion

here

independent

of either

composer

intention or

his-

torical

plausibility.

245


15/36

19TH

CENTURY

MUSIC

b.

Mahler,

Fourth

Symphony,

movt.

I,

mm.

72-76.

72

Fl.

(A)

_1

FPP>f

sf

Cl._(A)

A ___ ___

__

_ _

Sleighbells

1

Solo

Cb.

.

-

PP

75

poco

rit.

Fl.

dim.

Pdim.

( A )

w p m

dim.

P

Sleighbells

dim.

poco

rit.

V n .

V

n.

I

-

-t

[,--

PPPP

c.

"Jingle

Bells"

(original

form

of

chorus,

opening phrase).

CHORUS

Sopr.

Jin - gle bells,in - gle bells, Jin - gle all the way;

Jin

-

gle

bells,

Jin

suffering children perspectives on innocence and vulnerability in mahler's fourth

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